I am not arguing with you. The marriage contract can be impeded by Ecclesiastical or natural law. The condition of Alzheimers is a natural occurance, one of natural law, which naturally can impede a contract. Right? Annulments and dissolution of the marriage contract do occur all the time for these natural reasons that are quite apart from human fault to which Christ addresses his warning against human fault. Right?
Grounds for annullment must exist before the purported marriage was “contracted.” Do you really not understand this?
You cannot, 40 years after the marriage vows, say that a condition that began years after those vows, annuls the marriage.
Annulment does not end a marriage. It is not an analogue to divorce. Robertson was speaking of divorce, which, in his view, does end a marriage and permit remarriage. Annulment declares no sacramental marriage ever existed.
Alzheimers cannot be a basis for annulment unless someone had advanced Alzheimers at the time of marriage. This is next to impossible at normal ages of marriage. If a couple in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s tried to marry and one of them was in advanced Alzheimers, then they should never have been issued a license by the state nor should family or clergy have let the “marriage” happen. If undiagnosed Alzheimers existed in a, say, 70-year-old at the time of the marriage, then it wouold have to be demonstrated that he or she did not have sufficient sound mind to make a promise. But if that’s NOT what Robertson was talking about. He was talking about someone who married sound of mind and long years later gradually reached the point of advanced Alzheimers.
There is no analogy between what Robertson said and Catholic teaching on annulment. None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
From a biblical perspective, a marriage is not a contract, but a covenant.
Things that happen after the marriage contract do not come into the equation, only that which occurred before. That’s why Catholics are supposed to talk with a priest before they get married, to winkle out anything which might impede a valid vow, such as a desire to contracept, or intending an “open” marriage, or yes, a current diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
Wrong on all counts. Marriage, according to Catholic doctrine, is a Sacrament, not a contract. Your account of it is quite mistaken.
Only by those who ignore God. Jesus said, "He that has my COMMANDMENTS AND KEEPS THEM, he it is who loves Me." One of those commandments is related to not divorcing.
"Now to the married I command, YET NOT I BUT THE LORD: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife." 1 Cor 7:10-11